Rock’s wildest frontman prepares for one last show

Ozzy Osbourne has somehow made it through decades of drink, drugs and debauchery – not to mention jail, life-threatening accidents and Parkinson’s disease – but is now preparing to perform for devoted fans one last time.

Black Sabbath made an indelible mark on music by forging the sound that became known as heavy metal – and on top of that, Ozzy practically invented the image of the wild rock star.

Swigging, snorting and shagging his way around the globe in a semi-conscious daze in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, he ensured his place in the rock ‘n’ roll hall of infamy by biting the heads off some poor unsuspecting creatures along the way.

Then in the 2000s, he and his family were catapulted to a new form of fame when they unwittingly pioneered reality TV as cameras captured the foul-mouthed (but affectionate) dysfunction of their home life.

Ozzy has threatened to retire several times before – but with health problems taking an increasing toll, Saturday’s farewell gig really does look like his swansong.

The 76-year-old will reunite with his original Sabbath bandmates to headline an all-day stadium show featuring groups they have influenced over the years – including Metallica, Slayer and members of Guns N’ Roses and Rage Against the Machine. It has, not unjustly, been described as the greatest heavy metal show ever.

Titled Back to the Beginning, the show at Villa Park in Birmingham will really take the band back to their roots.

The football ground is a stone’s throw from Ozzy’s childhood terraced home in the suburb of Aston. On match days, the young Ozzy and his friends would charge match-goers half a shilling to “mind” their cars.

He has joked that his first job in the music industry was as a car horn tuner in a factory in the area, before getting a job in a slaughterhouse, which allowed him to play practical jokes in pubs by putting cows’ eyeballs in peoples’ pints.

But he wanted to escape the drudgery of a day job so put an advert for a band in a record shop. That eventually led him to form Black Sabbath with schoolfriend and guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward.

Other groups had summoned up a sound similar to heavy metal, but Sabbath really set the template with their combination of pounding rhythms, deep rock riffs and imagery of fantasy and horror.

“They started from absolutely nothing to be global superstars,” says fan Joe Porter, 47, from Birmingham, while admiring murals of the band that have been painted in the city in advance of the gig.

“If you watch their early concerts, they’ve got basic [equipment] – one PA, one small drum set, a bass and a guitar and that’s it. The sound they could make from those four instruments was like there’s 20 people on stage.

“And Ozzy’s like a madman on stage, but really he’s just a normal bloke.”

Their appeal crosses generations, judging by the crowd at Ozzy Osbourne: Working Class Hero, a new exhibition in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

“They started the year my mum was born, in ’68,” says 21-year-old Byron Howard-Maarij. “I’m a massive metal fan, so the fact that the originators are coming back to where it all started, it’s really exciting.”

Another fan, Riley Beresford, 25, from Nottingham, has inherited a copy of Sabbath’s 1970 single Paranoid as a family heirloom from his grandmother. “She got Paranoid on seven inch and it got passed down to my mum, and now it’s passed down to me. It’s going through the family.”

He adds: “They made heavy metal, didn’t they? Obviously the music’s great, but him being wild, it just adds to it even more. There’s no-one else like him, really, is there?”

“I think the reason people love Ozzy is he’s still very genuine,” says Toby Watley, director of collections at Birmingham Museums.

“He sees himself as a working class lad from Aston. He hasn’t really changed. What you see is what you get. It’s not going through a Hollywood lens and being glamorised in any way. People really love that and respect it. And it’s something that Birmingham can be really proud of.”

The exhibition features artefacts loaned by Ozzy and wife Sharon, including gold discs and awards such as his three Grammys and two Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame trophies (one for being inducted with Sabbath, the other as a solo artist).

They reflect his musical success, while pictures and videos of him on stage give a small glimpse of that wilder side.

“You never quite know what’s going to happen next, and I think people like that,” Mr Watley adds. “He’s not someone who attempts to stick to the rules. He will do it his own way, in his own style. I think that’s a big part of the appeal.”

Some of his antics have become legendary.

The most notorious was biting the head off a live bat while on stage in Iowa in 1982. He had been catapulting raw meat into the audience on tour, which prompted fans to throw things on stage in return. He claims he thought the bat was fake before he took a bite.

He has not attempted to use the same excuse about the two doves whose heads he bit off during a record label meeting the previous year.

His other exploits included being arrested for urinating on Texas war monument the Alamo while wearing one of Sharon’s dresses; getting thrown out of the Dachau concentration camp for being drunk and disorderly while on a visit during a German tour; pulling a gun on Black Sabbath’s drummer while on a bad acid trip; blacking out and waking up in the central reservation of a 12-lane freeway; and massacring the inhabitants of his chicken coop with a gun, sword and petrol while wearing a dressing gown and pair of wellies.

That all added to Ozzy’s legend, but in reality most of his behaviour was not very appealing or glamorous. He was a wreck, and the drink and drugs gave him a Jekyll and Hyde personality.

In 1989, he woke up in jail to be told he had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder for strangling Sharon. He could not remember anything about it. She dropped the charges.

In 2003, by now supposedly off drink, he broke his neck after falling off a quad bike, and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s the same year. In 2019, he suffered a spinal injury in a fall.

Fans are waiting to see what state he is in on stage on Saturday.

When he was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist last year, he had to sit on a large black throne – suitably adorned with skulls and a giant bat. The same throne has appeared in photos of rehearsals for this weekend’s gig in Birmingham.

His body has survived more abuse than virtually anybody else’s on the planet – but age and medical realities are catching up with him.

Sharon has said the concert will definitely be his final show.

He and his fans are likely to be forced to accept that is the case, although in the past he has found it impossible to stay out of the spotlight for long.

“You know the time I will retire?” he said in a 2020 documentary. “When I can hear them nail a lid on my box. And then I’ll do an encore.”